JS8Call Messaging and NVIS Communications

Hello Operators
In this video we discuss JS8Call Messaging for reliable Communications using NVIS on 40/80 meters.

JS8Call has a variety of messaging functionalities built in. Message store and forward, message relays, … all designed to work stand-alone, or through the JS8Call MESH network. As a narrow bandwidth weak signal mode, JS8 works extremely well for NVIS ( Near Vertical Incidence Skywave ) for local or regional communications. It’s also slowly becoming an asset to emergency communications and preparedness communities.

In this video, three stations all within NVIS range of one another, demonstrate the Messaging capabilities of JS8Call, on the 80 meters amateur radio band, using NVIS. Most JS8Call activity is located on 40 meters, but I wanted to demonstrate how we could set up a reliable network for Tactical Messaging, with zero infrastructure.

My NVIS antenna was set up horizontally, three meters or 11 feet above the ground. It is a 133 foot or 40 meters long end fed random wire antenna. For this test, no counterpoise or reflector was used. The antenna configuration is nothing special. It could have been a horizontal dipole, or some other wire antenna the same distance above the ground. As you’ll see in the video, performance was incredible, but we could even enhance performance positively, by using a counterpoise as a reflector, under the main radiating element.

NVIS works well on both 40 meters, 60 meters and 80 meters. The length of the antenna on 160 m is too long to be practical for most field deployment applications.

In upcoming videos, we’ll demonstrate other combinations of JS8CALL and NVIS on both bands.